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Essays on organizational change management
What is the difference between a learning organization and a traditional organization
What is the difference between a learning organization and a traditional organization
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1.0 What is a Learning Organization?
1.1 Definition of a Learning Organization
Just what makes a learning organization? In this sense the learning organization is an ideal, ‘towards which organizations have to evolve in order to be able to respond to the various pressures they face . It clearly portrays that it is essential to learn individually as well as in a collective manner.
Learning organizations are organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.
Successful organizations embrace change and development as the most important factor in the success of the organization. Without learning there is no improvement and without improvement organizations will be stagnate. Therefore learning is important for an organization to remain competitive .
However, it is difficult to see how a learning organization can be based on and derive from individual learning. An organization should take on board the ‘shared vision’. ‘Shared vision is vital for the learning organization because it provides the focus and energy for learning’ .
With this, a learning theory should be implemented based on employees’ attempts to cope with everyday problems that they encounter in their organizations.
1.2 Characteristics of a Learning Organization
A learning organization does not come on its own but instead comprises of several characteristics that defines it.
Contemporary descriptions of the "learning organization" have appeared throughout the management of literature. These descriptions portray learning organizations as capable of adapting to changes in the external business environment by practicing continuous renewal of their structures and practices. Many accounts of learning organizations suggest that the path to becoming a learning organization is often wildly experimental, intensely focused around team processes, structured into nonhierarchical clusters, and operating in virtual time/space through electronic networks.
The table below shows the positive results accruing to individuals and the organization or culture as a whole when they are present.
The first two characteristics are individual whereas the last three are group-based. The characteristics listed are general qualities that exist within a learning culture.
However, there are concrete cognitive and behavioural tools, as well as specific types of social interaction and structural conditions, that improve the chances that these qualities are achieved and sustained over time. These are the "best practices”.
While not an exhaustive list, the ones listed in the table fall under four main categories:
Senge, P. M. (1990). The leader's new work: Building learning organizations. Sloan Management Review, 32(1), 7-22. doi: 812347
Chapter 11 of Peter Senge's book, The Fifth Discipline, talks about the idea of Shared Vision, and how this concept has transformed organizations, and individuals working for them, into a cohesive unit of long-term innovative achievement.
Besides that, OB can serve managers, leaders and customers’ purposes. To begin with managers who have to expand their information about the attitude and group’s behavior to improve the organization work environment and to create a business plan to have a successful organization. First of all, managers can build a better workplace by recognizing the challenges that face any organizations because of some strategies that used in business environment. For example, one of the challenges are that having a cultural diversity in organization, so managers can build the organization with different cultures which help to encourage employee to do their job well and communicate with others in appropriate way. Secondly, managers can measure the effectiveness and efficiency; also, they can identify the strength and weakness of the organization. According to national institutes of health, Organizational effectiveness is about each individual doing everything they know how to do and doing it well (NIH, 2004). Moreover, OB offers ways that provide ways in how managers can trust their employees’ potential and using a reward system to enhance employees’ performance. OB is helping the managers on providing some strategies such as indentifying problems by searching and gathering information to have an accurate decision.
Learning refers to the relative permanent changes in an individual’s behavior that takes place due to an experience (Class Notes, Chapter 2). In my personal life, ability and learning are applicable through being able to appreciate the power that I have to perform a task and what I am able to get from the experience which will take place through learning. For instance, I could be assigned a task that will require me to apply my abilities and at the same time, it can act as a learning platform. In the work place, ability and learning can be a team’s experience where people with varying abilities will come together, teach and at the same time learn from others. It is one way that the workplace can grow, especially when people exchange ideas and learn from each
Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and Practice of the learning organization (1st ed., Rev.). New York, NY: Doubleday.
.... “The set of deep beliefs and assumptions-the story-that develops over time in a learning organization is so different from the traditional hierarchical, authoritarian organization worldview that it seems to describe a completely different world” (Senge, 1994, p. 21).
Solberg, J. (2011). Becoming learning common partners: Working toward a shared vision and practice. Journal of Organization Transformation and Social Change, 8 (3), 243-260. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jots.8.3.243_1
Senge, P.N. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organisation London: Century Business
As the theme of my essay I have chosen to find out what our contemporary society must not forget in order to be able to make organizational theory evolve well into the 21st century. For this task I have decided to take a look back to Aldous Huxley’s modern dystopia “Brave new world”, that warned against totalitarian regimes that intended to suppress individuality in order to advance the interest of the state in its time. Even as those regimes might not be a direct threat nowadays we can eerily conclude that some aspects of it are quite accurate for the times we live in. According to Phillip Yancey who suggested that “there is a much more subtle enemy inchoate within each of us - a natural tendency for people to trade autonomy for comfort, safety and amusement.” This for the most people does not set off alarms but I will argue that it is the most basic requirement that has to be met in our day and age in order to tackle the wide range of issues that we face at the crossroads leading to the future, whether we talk about humanity or organizational theory itself. I think the novel gives us the perfect opportunity to draw parallels with our contemporary society, and see what must be corrected within post modernity based on how things evolved over the course of history and from prophetical books like Huxley’s even as at his time it was only intended to be satire. In the World State people are controlled by technologies like genetic engineering, sleep-learning and drugs like soma to satisfy needs and gently induce masses to enjoy their servitude. If one were to describe postmodernism in just a word or two, "skepticism" and "relativism" would probably best capture the overall ethos of its adherents. Deep skepticism about...
The learning organization is the opposite of the traditional organization. It believes that there is always a better way to do things, it listens to those who work within the company, utilizes a systems approach, is orientated towards people and ideas, prevents problems, quality and customer-service is essential, and accountability to the team is essential (Anderson, 2003). The lear...
Culture has five basic characteristics: It is learned, shared, based on symbols, integrated, and dynamic (http://home.eartlink.net/~youngturck/Chapter8.htm).
Culture has five basic characteristics: It is learned, shared, based on symbols, integrated, and dynamic. All cultures share these basic features.
For a company to be successful it is important that it has very good organization. Organization can be defined in many different ways. Bateman and Snell define organizing as assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational,
Organization is formed by a group of people who work together. No matter the organization is a profit making ones or non-profit making ones, its formations are to achieve a common purpose or variety of goals, which are the desired future outcomes. The outcomes might be producing a series of product or serving a group of target customers or satisfying others¡¦ needs.
Management plays a significant role in how business operates. The diversity of approaches to the theoretical and practical background of management has come up with several versions of what is meant by such key words as management and organization. The academia views expressed in relation to management theories take a different role than that prescribed to managers. There has not been any concrete definition of management even though the classic definition of Henri fayol still remains in contention to be the preferred choice after eighty years. In the context of what is required I would like to elaborate on the following journals.